We’re making some beautiful print work for our publishing partners… we hope you’ve had a fantastic week, and we hope next week is even better! Don’t forget to call us at 877.329.0571 if there’s something we can print for you!

We’ve recently updated our Contact Page, making it substantially easier for our partners to contact the Fox Print Services representative that work for for their state. We’ve also added a small form for general inquiries (typically responded to within the hour, depending on time of day).

Simply roll over your region and you’ll get the name, email address and phone number of the Fox Print team member that will assist you with your project from start to finish!

CASE STUDY:
Melissa Urbanec, office manager of The Wayne Herald in Wayne, Nebraska, recently saw an opportunity for increased revenue after receiving a competitor’s advertising magnet by mail. “We decided then to beat the competition”, she said.

THE CHALLENGE

When Melissa Urbanec proposed a magnet to her community, she did not anticipate the advertisers clamoring for ad space. Perhaps it was the uniqueness of the offering. “We had to turn some away; we just didn’t have the ad space,” she said. More impressively, The Wayne Herald had to sell the idea without a sample magnet to show. Without any visualization, Urbanec noted that some companies struggled initially with the idea of a magnet. But even with this handicap, it only took one week to sell out the ad spaces and complete the design. Urbanec and the Herald management team were thrilled with the results of their magnet promotion and considered it a huge success. The Wayne Herald purchased 1000 magnets, generated gross revenue of more than $2600 and earned over 70% ROI.

Who would’ve thought a magnet would have this level of success in Wayne, Nebraska? Melissa Urbanec recognized its hidden potential and popularity in her town.

So much proliferation on their first try has emboldened The Wayne Harold to venture into other non-traditional advertising opportunities. “We are looking into mouse pads and coozies” Urbanec said, “newspapers have to diversify in this day and age.” Not only will this attitude ensure The Wayne Herald’s survival, it will also create portfolio diversity, growth and profit.

CONCLUSION

A myriad of options exist for substantial business growth through services provided to newspapers by Fox Print. By improving the variety and quality of your ancillary products and special sections, Fox can help your newspaper earn considerable profits from sources that will not divert revenue from your core product.

Contact Fox Print and together we will grow your newspaper’s non-traditional revenue opportunities.

BeginningsThe origins of Mardi Gras can be traced all the way back to the third century A.D. when Roman emperor Aurelius fixed December 25th as the Sun’s birthday. When combined with the pre-existing Saturnalia, a holiday in which Romans upturned social norms by wearing costumes and partying in the streets, then transformed into a weeklong event. Not long after, the church converted these pagan festivals into Christian holidays, and the revelry continued through Shrove Tuesday, aka Fat Tuesday.

Carnival and LentThe word “carnival” literally translates as “farewell to meat,” referring to the 40 days of Lent in which Catholics abstain from worldly pleasures of the flesh, namely meat dishes. Under mid-evil Christianity, Fat Tuesday became the last day to live in excess in until the end of Lent.

Mardi Gras in New OrleansNo one knows exactly when carnival traditions were introduced in New Orleans by the Europeans. The first recorded instance took place in 1837. A few years later partying had grown so out of control that many tried to ban the festivities. Crews, now spelled Krewe, were formed of men from New Orleans and Alabama in an attempt to save their favorite holiday.

King CakeThe king cake derives from medieval carnival culture, when Europeans placed a bean in the cake to represent fertility. When the French brought this tradition to New Orleans, they replaced the bean with a small baby Jesus. The king cake is still extremely popular during carnival season in New Orleans.

DIY Mardi Gras PartyThrowing your own Mardi Gras party is simple. All you need are plastic beads (a few for each person and for the tables), a king cake, masks, a great soundtrack, and some adult refreshments. If you don’t live near New Orleans, king cakes can be easily shipped long distance or made from scratch at home. If you make your own, be sure to get a plastic baby for the cake, and warn unsuspecting guests of choking hazards. Purple, green, and gold are classic Mardi Gras colors and will add ambiance to your party.

With embedded content, publishers are given an opportunity to increase their online advertisement real estate without worrying about updating copy or spending time managing content.

Inspire Health offers a content feed that surpasses RSS feeds (though we can supply RSS feed addresses upon request) using an established web technology called “iFrames.” Using iFrames, publishers like yourself have the ability to populate a blank web page (or web template) using one line of code provided by us.

How it works:

On your website or content management system, create blank webpage.

In the authoring console of the new blank webpage you created, copy and paste the code we send you into any appropriate section that allows the insertion of HTML

You’re done!

Out of the box, the iFrame will take up a rectangular shape in the middle of your new page. You can change these dimensions to any size that best fits your layout. Everything outside of the iFrame is yours… you can add affiliate links, advertisements, and content to the page as you normally would. The articles inside the frame will not redirect your visitors to another site, as only the contents of the iFrame itself are refreshed (and back button functionality is maintained). Essentially, this is a block of content that we will update for you; all you have to do it generate ad revenue from your current and future ad campaigns.

The iFrame works brilliantly with mobile-friendly websites, and because we serve the content from our server, you don’t have to worry about search engine penalization since there’s no actual content duplication (something Google really doesn’t like).

Note:

Each content feed is unique for each and every one of our publishing partners. If the Inspire Health you publish contains local articles and editorials, we will ensure that your digital feed includes those pieces!

Native advertising is a great way to deliver a brand’s message while providing consumers with high-quality, informative content. The practice is becoming more prevalent in publications like the New York Times and Forbes.

The good news for advertisers is that most consumers cannot distinguish native advertising from editorial content. A new study published in the December 2015 issue of the Journal of Advertising concluded that only 17 out of 242 subjects – less than 8 percent – could distinguish between editorial content and native advertising. Additionally, Copyblogger’s 2014 State of Native Advertising Report shows that more than 60 percent of consumers do not view native advertising as misleading.

Here are a few tips on how to create successful native advertisements.

Create Quality ContentAudiences will read great content regardless of who writes it. By crafting high-quality, relevant content that is targeted to your audience, you will draw in readers and create success for your advertisers. High-quality native advertisements increase consumers’ level of trust for a sponsoring brand, according to a Contently survey.

Know Your AudienceIn addition to having good content, you should develop content that blends seamlessly with the publication’s editorial style and tone. Research what kind of content is typically published in the publication, then craft native advertisements in an authentic voice that communicates your advertisers’ messages.

Increase Brand EngagementThe purpose of native ads is to increase engagement. The best way to optimize brand engagement in native advertisements is by generating informative, high-quality content that is strategically targeted to your audience. Consumers are more willing to engage with native advertising if it closely resembles the content they usually read.

Interested in including native advertisements in your next issue of one of our magazines? We can help! We will review what you have and help you improve it to better reach your target audience.

Call us today at (877) 329-0571 to discuss how we can help you create native advertisements and reach more consumers!

When crafting Active Living magazine, a publication designed for a 55-and-over audience, we were acutely aware that the way we presented content was just as important as the content itself. Some of these items are best practices no matter the audience, but when engaging older adults with print, we found the following items to be absolutely crucial:

1. There’s a New Serif In TownTo increase readability in the body text, we selected a serif font and increased the size to 12 points (up from the average 10 point font in our other publications).

2. Please Remove Caps Title case is easier to read than all caps due to shape contrast. When reading, we primarily process the shapes of words, but all caps forces the reader to slow down and recognize every letter individually.

3. We Needed Space We carefully increased the leading in our body text to make our typeface as readable as possible.

4. You’re Only as Old as You Feel People don’t view themselves as being as old as they are. We found that our target audience better relates to images of people that are slightly chronologically younger.

5. Everything In Its Place We enhanced the contrast in our text by minimizing its placement over screened photos and other graphic elements.

Active Living is dedicated to entertaining and informing the most loyal reader base you have… a print-native generation that has more purchasing power than any other. With Active Living, you have the perfect platform to market local businesses and the ability to offer local content that will appeal to this growing demographic.

Active Living won’t burden your editorial or design staff. It’s a non-intrusive way for you to grow your audience and increase your ad revenue, whether it’s inserted in your newspaper or racked at your local newsstands!

Your advertisers want to be seen, and your readers want this content. Call us now (1.877.329.0571) and let’s get Active Living in front of your subscribers!